EARLY ACCIDENT TAKES NO. 5 CARQUEST/KELLOGG’S 
TEAM OUT OF RACE

MEARS CHECKED AND RELEASED FROM INFIELD CARE CENTER

FONTANA, Calif. (Feb. 24, 2008) – Casey Mears and the No. 5 CARQUEST/Kellogg’s Chevrolet team posted a 42nd-place finish Sunday at California Speedway, following an accident on Lap 20.

“I went into Turn 1and 2, and the car was a little tighter than normal,” Mears said. “When that happened, it pushed me up the track to a place I didn’t want to be in and that was in the water up there. That instantly made the car loose and spun it around.

“I thought I had it saved and barely nicked the outside wall, which is what spun us. The hardest hit was when Dale Earnhardt Jr. clipped us. And I hated it for those guys. Just a bad day all around for the 5/88 shop. I just feel sick about the whole deal.”

Rain showered California Speedway throughout the weekend, prompting the cancellation of all on-track activities on Friday. Instead of using qualifying times, NASCAR officials lined up the start of Sunday’s event by final owner standings from the 2007 race season. The No. 5 CARQUEST/Kellogg’s Chevrolet was fifth on the starting grid.

On Saturday, the clouds broke long enough for the Sprint Cup teams to get in 17 laps of practice before rain fell once again.

With rain still looming Sunday, there was talk of postponing the 500-mile race until Monday. But around 1 p.m. P.T., the sun began to shine, and the jet dryers were placed on the track. At 3 p.m., the drivers were told to report to their race cars.

After several pace laps for water on the race track and an oil leak from the No. 55 of Michael Waltrip, NASCAR officials waved the green flag at 3:30 p.m.

Mears radioed to the CARQUEST/Kellogg’s team that the track was still too wet to race, and he dropped one position to sixth on the initial start. He reported that the Chevrolet was good, but when the car hit the water spots in Turn 1 and Turn 2, it was incredibly loose.

The first caution of the night occurred on Lap 14 for Denny Hamlin’s No. 11. Mears radioed to the team that the CARQUEST/Kellogg’s Chevrolet was tight through the center of the turns, but became loose as he exited them.

The team changed four tires, added fuel and made wedge and air pressure adjustments during a Lap 16 pit stop. Mears remained in sixth place on the restart. During the caution laps, he reported to his team that there appeared to be more water on the track than at the beginning of the race.

On the restart, the CARQUEST/Kellogg’s Chevrolet hit a water patch in Turn 1 and Turn 2, initiating the four-car accident that involved the No. 41 of Reed Sorenson and the No. 88 of Earnhardt, Mears’ Hendrick Motorsports teammate. The contact from Earnhardt sent Mears back to the wall, where the No. 77 of Sam Hornish Jr. crashed into him from behind. Contact with the No. 77 flipped the CARQUEST/Chevrolet upside down and then onto its side. Fire erupted from under the hood of the No. 77, which was under the No. 5 Chevy at the time. The track’s medical staff extinguished the flames and immediately removed Mears from the car. He was escorted to the infield care center, where he was checked and released with no injuries.

The Kellogg’s/CARQUEST team next will compete at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sunday, March 2. The race will air live on FOX at 3:30 p.m., ET.

AUTOGRAPHS: Casey Mears will greet fans and sign autographs 
at the Kellogg's/CARQUEST souvenir trailer on Sunday at 9:40 a.m. PT.

CASEY MEARS, DRIVER, NO. 5 CARQUEST/KELLOGG'S CHEVROLET (ON GOING BACK HOME TO CALIFORNIA.): "I love going back to California. Actually, I love getting back to the West Coast as much as possible. A lot of my family lives out there, so it's a good time for me to see everyone and just kind of chill out. They all go out to my motorcoach in the evenings, and we just hang out like it's a normal night."

MEARS (ON THE INFLUENCE HIS FAMILY HAS HAD ON HIS RACING DECISIONS.): "My dad is really so important to me. He's been there through all of my racing, since I was a kid. When I moved to NASCAR, he became my motorcoach driver. So I'm really used to seeing my dad on race days and as soon as I get out of that race car. It's a little different this year, because he's not coming every weekend, but we still talk on the phone all the time. I try to make it like he's here. My Uncle Rick is really who I look up to and want to be like. He was just always thought of as a good guy (when he was racing). He didn't act like someone he wasn't. He didn't need to be in the spotlight all the time. He just raced hard and treated everyone with respect."

MEARS (ON HIS WEST COAST HOBBIES.): "I love the sand dunes. I know I talk about it all the time, but really that's where I want to be during any time off that we have. I got a new sand car last winter, and I've really been working on that. We take a motorcoach out there and just ride all day. There's no one telling you where to go, or to stop here, or go here, or slow down, or whatever. There's no road signs, no street lights. You really can do whatever you want. I guess I kind of recharge out there. Next week, I'm taking a couple of rookies, including my crew chief Alan (Gustafson), out there with me. We'll see how they do."

ALAN GUSTAFSON, CREW CHIEF, NO. 5 CARQUEST/KELLOGG'S CHEVROLET (ON HAVING DIFFICULTY TURNING DURING TESTING AT CALIFORNIA SPEEDWAY.): "California Speedway doesn't have much banking at all so that makes it even harder to figure out the handling and get these new cars to turn than it is at tracks like Las Vegas or Atlanta. With less banking, the cars seem to handle worse. The tight handling is a tough issue to overcome on non-banked tracks."

GUSTAFSON (ON HOW THE TEAM WILL COMBAT THE TIGHT HANDLING THIS WEEKEND.): "Well, when we tested out there, we learned a lot. We came back to the shop and kept working on it. The engineers got on it. We went to the seven-post with it. It's an issue that we'll have to try to overcome in different ways than aerodynamically."

GUSTAFSON (ON IF THIS IS AN ISSUE AFFECTING ALL TEAMS.): "This is inherent to the new car. Certain teams will do a better job of dealing with it and getting the car to handle better. But we've been told from day one, when the first COT (Car of Tomorrow) was tested, that they just don't want to turn."

DEAN MOZINGO, TRANSPORTER DRIVER, NO. 5 CARQUEST/KELLOGG'S CHEVROLET (ON THE TURNAROUND FOLLOWING THE RACE AT CALIFORNIA SPEEDWAY.): "Working at Hendrick Motorsports, we have good resources and good people that make a turnaround like this easy. It's really hard on the single-car teams and even multiple-car teams that don't have the resources that we do. We worked hard to get everything in order. It's not too bad of a deal, really. I just hate being gone from home that long."